Boris Johnson hands his brother a seat in the House of Lords

The prime minister’s brother Jo Johnson has been nominated for a seat in the House of Lords, it was revealed immediately.

Boris Johnson has additionally nominated his chief strategic adviser Sir Edward Lister, cricketer Sir Ian Botham and a number of other Tory grandees for peerages, a listing of nominations revealed on Friday confirmed.

Philip May, husband of former Prime Minister Theresa May, can also be destined for a knighthood.

It would mark a return to parliament for Jo Johnson, who stood down as an MP final 12 months after disagreeing with the Government’s Brexit technique.

However, the prime minister has been criticised for ‘cronyism’ and abandoning a long-standing Conservative coverage to scale back the dimension of the House, which is able to now have greater than 800 members.

The SNP MP Pete Wishart mentioned Mr Johnson was giving jobs for all times to ‘friends and those who have done him favours’.

Ex-England cricket participant and Brexit supporter Sir Ian Botham, 64, declined to touch upon rumours he was in line for a peerage earlier this month.

But his identify is on the listing, alongside newspaper proprietor Evgeny Lebedev and former chief of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson.

Numerous former MPs who rebelled towards the Labour place to again Brexit are additionally being put ahead, together with Kate Hoey, Ian Austin, and Gisela Stuart.

Notable absentees embrace former Commons speaker John Bercow and Labour’s former deputy chief Tom Watson.

The deputy chief of the Democratic Unionist Party Nigel Dodds has been handed a peerage after he misplaced his seat in final 12 months’s election. The DUP supported the final Conservative Government after Theresa May didn’t win a majority.

Leader Arlene Foster mentioned it was a ‘rightful recognition of the significant contribution Nigel has thus far played in both local and national political life.’

Mr Johnson picked his brother, regardless of the pair taking totally different stances over Brexit. When Jo Johnson introduced he was standing down in 2019, he mentioned he was torn between ‘family and national interest.’

Tory chief Mr Johnson has additionally used peerages to heal rifts with Conservative former chancellors Ken Clarke and Philip Hammond after he stripped them from the Tory whip once they defied him over Brexit.

His 36 sturdy listing has been slammed, with the Lord Speaker, Lord Fowler, stating that it will depart the home 830-strong – 200 extra members than the House of Commons.

He added: ‘That is a huge coverage u-turn. It was solely two years in the past that the then prime minister, Mrs May, pledged herself to a coverage of “restraint” in the quantity of new appointments. It was the first time that any prime minister had made such a pledge.’

Lord Fowler additionally criticised the timing of the announcement in the center of the summer season recess when neither House is sitting and capable of problem the appointments.

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